What about Julia's last name? (Belén Ibaceta's beautiful post which she could not publish because she was not intelligent enough to ask for an invitation to the blog)

         Nineteenth Eighty- Four is a George Orwell’s dystopian novel which depicts the reality of Winston Smith’s immersion in the totalitarian system of Oceania to which he constantly casts doubt on. Orwell’s concept of political system which he takes from his observation to what surrounds him attracts us today because of its adaptability to our present governmental context. However, Orwell’s representation of his concern about social justice can we questioned in the light of gender inequality in his novel.

         Women are doubtfully in the same position of men in Orwell’s narrative. While we observe men in great positions whether it is Big Brother, O’Brien as a member of the Inner Party,  even Winston if we think of his empowerment as an opposite referent to the totalitarian system present in Nineteen eighty-four, there is a lack of female strong figures in this book.  From the beginning we are presented with characters such as Winston’s neighbour who is afraid of her own children’s behaviour and incapable of changing them since it was expected from kids to be their parents’ spies; “'Goldstein!' bellowed the boy as the door closed on him. But what most struck Winston was the look of helpless fright on the woman's greyish face.” (p.20). Instead of questioning or interfering in their habits, Mrs. Parsons remains there unaltered.  “With those children, he thought, that wretched woman must lead a life of terror” (p.20)

          The language used to refer to women seems somehow too rough. As an example we can see Winston mentioning Katherine’s existence 'I'm thirty-nine years old. I've got a wife that I can't get rid of. I've got varicose veins. I've got five false teeth.' (p.98) Katherine clearly becomes a ghostly object which needs to be thrown away and compared to physical aspects such as teeth. Or what about the moment in which Winston and Julia are caught by O’Brien and taken to what seems to be a prison?

An enormous wreck of a woman, aged about sixty, with great tumbling breasts and thick coils of white hair which had come down in her struggles, was carried in, kicking and shouting, by four guards, who had hold of her one at each corner. They wrenched off the boots with which she had been trying to kick them, and dumped her down across Winston's lap, almost breaking his thigh-bones (p.185)

        There is violence undoubtedly present in the way this woman is being treated as well as the form Orwell employs to refer to this woman as if she were part of livestock, but this is not the only example. In O’Brien words to Winston on how the new civilization has removed any trace of human emotion we can appreciate a similar use of the idea of women as animals: “Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen.” (p.218)

        Now if we think about another female character in Nineteenth Eighty-Four as it is Winston’s mother, she is probably the less poorly treated in a direct way, we learn more about her through Winston’s thoughts about the past and dreams about her: “His mother's memory tore at his heart because she had died loving him, when he was too young and selfish to love her in return, and because somehow, he did not remember how, she had sacrificed herself to a conception of loyalty that was private and unalterable” (p.25).
      The sort of aggression towards Winston’s mother is more of a silent and implicit one, she is left alone with two children to raise and no love to receive, we are lead to believe that she was dependent of the figure of his husband: “When his father disappeared, his mother did not show any surprise or any violent grief, but a sudden change came over her. She seemed to have become completely spiritless.”(p.132) Moreover, in the description of this woman’s personality we can still find traces of deprecation “from what he could remember of her, that she had been an unusual woman, still less an intelligent one; and yet she had possessed a kind of nobility, a kind of purity, simply because the standards that she obeyed were private ones.” (p.135) this somehow matches to what Császár asserts in relation to Orwell’s writing: “In his vocabulary masculine and feminine bore value judgements, associating the former with strength, courage and action and the latter with passivity and softness. (Császár, 2010) following social conventions of male and female roles.

         In relation to Nineteenth Eighty-Four’s most important female character there are a few ideas to be discussed. Julia is a twenty-six year old woman working in Oceania’s Ministry of Truth for the “Fiction Department”. At first, Winston questions her acts; he thinks she is following him and a more evident and direct kind of violence towards her emerges which he later reveals to her without hesitation: “'I hated the sight of you,' he said. 'I wanted to rape you and then murder you afterwards. Two weeks ago I thought seriously of smashing your head in with a cobblestone (p.99). In The Orwell Mystique: A study in Male Ideology, Patai emphasises Winston’s original sadistic hostility towards Julia (which comes at least partly out of his fear that she is a member of the Thought Police), while suggesting that Winston’s subsequent long and healing relationship with her is merely “a concession on Orwell’s part to popular literature” (In Eckstein, 1985) And how is this hostility to be emphasised? Is this the way you would approach a woman in one of your first encounters? Is this the way you would like to be treated as a woman?

          If we move to a more deep level of understanding: Is Julia equal to Winston? From a first reading perspective we might think so, both of them oppose to the Party and are willing to be part of the Brotherhood, both of them are able to perceive the reality that surrounds them as something that should be different, or changed. However, their level of intricacy is quite different; while Winston is concerned with large-scale changes in the totalitarian system he is immersed into, Julia is content with making the most out of the present which meant to be rebel sometimes:

Life as she saw it was quite simple. You wanted a good time; 'they', meaning the Party, wanted to stop you having it; you broke the rules as best you could. She seemed to think it just as natural that 'they' should want to rob you of your pleasures as that you should want to avoid being caught. She hated the Party, and said so in the crudest words, but she made no general criticism of it. Except where it touched upon her own life she had no interest in Party doctrine. He noticed that she never used Newspeak words except the ones that had passed into everyday use. She had never heard of the Brotherhood, and refused to believe in its existence. Any kind of organized revolt against the Party, which was bound to be a failure, struck her as stupid. The clever thing was to break the rules and stay alive all the same. (p.108)

           Although Eckstein’s argument that “Julia is by far the most psychologically healthy character in the book, certainly powerful, capable, and active.” (Eckstein, 1985), we can understand thanks to what is depicted in the previous quote that Julia’s philosophy is more of a survivor’s one, of a person who follows only her instincts. This would explain her highly sexual being and the fact that she sleeps with Party members to satisfy her own desires because that is what rebellion means to her, neglecting more important aspects such as war, and being a member of the Brotherhood, as if supporting the idea of IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

          In addition to this, Winston longs to join the Brotherhood and read Emmanuel Goldstein’s manifesto which he tries to encourage Julia to read with poor results:

‘We must read it,' he said.’you too. All members of the Brotherhood have to read it.'

'You read it,' she said with her eyes shut. 'Read it aloud. That's the best way. Then you can explain it to me as you go.' (p. 164).

         Winston had to be constantly checking whether she was paying attention or not, and of course, she was not, she had fallen asleep so as to show her lack of interest, in contrast with Winston’s curiosity for the matter. Is it because a contrast of ideas needs to be made so as to potentiate Winston that Julia has no opportunity of being intellectually complex? Is it because of her intellectual inferiority that she does not deserve a last name? Why could not this have been the other way round?

If we think of women’s lack of opportunities in Nineteenth Eighty-Four, it becomes stronger and more noticeable when compared and contrasted with Allan Moore’s V for Vendetta. In this book we have a first helpless Evey, literally selling herself to a totalitarian system, with no way to go.

         However, she is given the opportunity of redemption and maturity throughout this graphic novel, although this is mostly because of V’s assistance, Moore transfer the power of this male figure to the true main character of this book. If we relate the moments in which Julia and Winston were tortured with Evey’s false imprison there is a lot to be said, Julia is perceived as a traitor to Winston while being tortured, and as a result both of them are re-immersed in the same system they once neglected without possibility of emotion. In contrast, Evey learns more about herself, confronts her fears, and therefore is better prepared for the cruel reality that surrounds her. Although their governments will remain much the same, Moore provides Evey with self-awareness and a higher level of consciousness as a tool to confront the system.

        In conclusion, although feminism in a dystopian novel which focuses on social matters of injustice and political power may not seem the most important problem to tackle, it is something that called my attention and I felt obliged to point it out because if we think of social equality, it cannot only be addressed in terms of socioeconomic levels but also in terms of gender equality. In fact, I agree with Császár’s words “In the eyes of feminists, Orwell’s blindness to women’s issues and his own emphatic masculinity calls into question, perhaps even invalidates, his commitment to social justice” (Császár, 2010) and it seems somehow disappointing that such a great notion of governmental misuse of power which we can relate to in our days gets stained by a negligence to the female gender.  It leads us to question whether Orwell had problems with allowing women to be in the same physical and psychological position or not, but if paying attention to the details shown previously, we cannot deny the evidence that Orwell’s expression of women seems relatively offensive.               Moreover, from what we have learned in our experience with Literature, the process of reading is not complete without the reader’s perception and construction of reality so what do you think about feminism in Nineteenth Eighty-Four and V for Vendetta? Are women given the same importance? Is the notion of women inferiority in Orwell’s writing an exaggeration?

References

Császár, I. (2010). Orwell and Women’s Issues–a Shadow over the Champion of Decency.         Eger Journal of English Studies. 39-56

Eckstein, A. (1985). Orwell, Masculinity, and Feminist Criticism. The Intercollegiate Review,       21(1), 47.

Moore, A. (2006). V for Vendetta. New York: DC comics Inc.


Orwell, G. (2001). Nineteen eighty-four. Project Gutenberg Australia.